Silicon Valley venture capitalist Tom Perkins is under fire for comparing criticism of the rich to Nazi persecution of Jews - but that hyperbolic analogy wasn't his only inaccurate claim.

Overlooked in this week's outrage-and-apology cycle was the validity of Perkins' contention that the 1 percent is being persecuted in the first place.

"It's absurd to demonize the rich for being rich and for doing what the rich do, which is get richer by creating opportunity for others," Perkins told Bloomberg TV Monday, doubling down on the argument he made in a letter to the editor in the Wall Street Journal last weekend.

The 82-year-old co-founder of the giant firm Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers is right that the rich are getting richer. When adjusted for inflation, average incomes for the wealthiest 1 percent of Californians increased 78 percent between 1987 and 2011, according to the California Budget Project.

But Perkins' claim of trickle-down economics runs into some statistical problems - the lowest rung of the economic ladder has seen average adjusted gross incomes drop 18 percent over the same period.

Worse, economic mobility of Americans isn't what it used to be: If you're born poor, you'll have a tough time getting rich - or even close. Forty-three percent of those raised in the bottom 20 percent of the nation's economic spectrum remain there as adults, according to a study by the nonpartisan Pew Charitable Trusts Economic Mobility Project.

Even more daunting: 70 percent of those in the bottom rung "never make it to the middle," according to Erin Currier, director of Pew's economic mobility project.

With President Obama raising the issue of income inequality Tuesday in his State of the Union, America's income inequality will be a major political and cultural topic in 2014.

"We don't begrudge the wealthy their success," said Chris Hoene, executive director of the California Budget Project, a nonpartisan group that analyzes the effects of economic policy in the state. "But in California, certainly, they have disproportionate share of the wealth."

Some wealthy Californians tell state Board of Equalization member Betty Yee that they know they are under the microscope, and while she understands their concerns, the talk of persecution "felt a little bit over the top."

Wealthy Californians are not too happy about 2012's Proposition 30, which raised taxes on those making more than $250,000 and households making more than $500,000. Federal tax cuts created under former President George W. Bush were extended last year, but the top marginal tax rate increased from 35 percent to 39.6 percent for individuals making more than $400,000 and married couples topping $450,000.

That does hit them in the pocketbook - but it's a stretch to say the wealthy have been demonized financially.

The S&P 500 gained 30 percent last year, its best year since 1997. And roughly 95 percent of the nation's income gains during the first three years of the recovery went to the wealthiest 1 percent of Americans, according to a 2013 UC Berkeley study.

Perkins bemoaned a "rising tide of hatred of the successful 1 percent." And while there have been much-hyped demonstrations against shuttle buses carting tech workers from San Francisco to their Peninsula employers, there hasn't been a lot of hatred coming from Washington, where policy decisions affecting the wealthy are made.

Obama has talked tough about clamping down on Wall Street after the financial meltdown, but the federal government has not successfully prosecuted any individuals responsible for igniting the crisis that led to thousands of Americans losing their homes.

The housing market and the economy are rosy in Perkins' San Francisco, but other parts of California are suffering; the state's 24 percent poverty rate is the highest in the nation.

And it's not just about incomes - it also comes down to savings. If Californians lose their jobs or have some sort of other emergency arise, 46 percent couldn't cover their expenses for three months, according to a national study released Thursday by the Corporation for Enterprise Development.

"The question we need to ask is, 'What has happened to the middle class in this state?' " said Yee. "It is disappearing."